Easier to be Found. Having a cool website with impressive graphics and persuasive content is great…but it doesn’t do you much good if nobody can find it! The reality is that there are probably lots of companies who sell the same or similar product as you do who may also have a cool website. And you are out there competing to bring potential customers to your site before your competition can attract those same customers to their sites. Therefore, it is really important to make yourself easy to find.
So what does being easy to find have to do with mobile responsiveness? In April of 2015, Google began giving websites that are mobile responsive an advantage in mobile searches. In mobile searches done with Google, websites that are not mobile responsive will turn up further down in search results. Being further down in the search results means you’ll have fewer visits to your website, which results in fewer opportunities to communicate your message and sell your product. As the number of searches done on mobile continues to grow, this will affect an increasing proportion of your target market.
Easier to Use. The advantage of a mobile responsive website continues beyond just making you easier to find. Arguably even more important is the experience prospects have once they have entered your site. If your prospects access your site on a mobile device, their experience could be negatively impacted by a site that is designed only for desktop screens. The automatic adjustments to your website required by the smaller screen may make text too small or too distorted to read, menus too difficult to navigate, and forms too cumbersome to complete. All of which may cause your prospect to give up on your website, and by extension, on you! Websites with a mobile responsive design, in contrast, are constructed to adjust to the device, delivering a positive and productive interface with the user, regardless of the device.
Easier to Sell. This brings us to an even more crucial benefit of the mobile responsive website – it makes it easier to sell your product. Building on the last point, we can see that visits conducted on a mobile device are more likely to be helpful and positive if the website is built on a mobile responsive platform. This in turn makes it more likely that the visit will result in a sale, either now or down the line. This is true, first of all, because your ability to convert your prospect to a customer will often be dependent on that prospect having an overall positive view of your business. If the website is awkward or unworkable on a tablet or smart phone, the prospect may assume that the business is not well-managed or that you are “behind the times.” Some visitors may completely write you off at this point.
Other visitors may struggle through, but this brings us to another point. If your website is not mobile responsive, you may not be able to count on forms loading or submitting properly. So even if a visitor is not deterred by a negative experience with the site and even if they decide to buy your product, they may not be able to access the necessary forms to order or request more information. With a mobile responsive website, forms should load properly and be easy for customers to access and submit, making a sale more likely.
Easier to Manage. Finally, in addition to making the user’s experience more positive and productive today, mobile-responsive websites also make life easier for businesses in the future. Some businesses choose to maintain two separate sites – one for desktop users, the other for mobile users. Obviously, in this situation, whenever a change is made to the website, it must be made to two different websites. Additionally, while sites that are created specifically for mobile sites require an overhaul for new devices with new dimensions, mobile responsive sites will adjust to whatever size the screen may be. Thus, having a mobile responsive site can lessen the resources required for your business to maintain a usable site.
Having a mobile responsive website is almost a necessity these days and in the future it is sure to be even more crucial. All our websites are built on a mobile responsive platform and designed to look professional and perform smoothly on both desktops and mobile devices. If you’d like to learn more, give us a call at 317-683-7578 and ask for Wade (ext. 707).
